


Sacrifices

by ukiyomble



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Holt Reunion, Kidnapping, M/M, Mental Abuse, Mental Torture, Paladins, Parents, Past Relationship(s), Reunions, Sad with happy ending, Slow Burn, Voltron, keith’s parents, klance, maybe ships maybe not, non Canon, potential shatt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-03-24 21:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ukiyomble/pseuds/ukiyomble
Summary: Keith gives up his life to save his teammates. The impact is detrimental.





	1. Chapter 1

He braced himself for the worst. No amount of training could have saved him from this moment on. Keith convinced himself of that. The pod raced toward the galra invader at the same rate of his thundering heartbeat. His eyes closed as he was nearly a few feet away. He turned the communication link on for the last time, hearing his ex teammates shout at him, telling him to turn back. In a solemn voice he tells them, “Thank you for everything.” Then, Keith’s entire being burned like a raging fire. 

Everything seemed to be blurred around him. He wasn’t able to move his limbs. Everyone’s voice seemed to be in thick waters, unable to listen to their calls. Where was he? Cries of war filled his head, and his instincts told him to run. His legs disobeyed and remained dormant. Keith opened his mouth to cry out for help, but found no voice. The former red paladin was trapped. 

 

All the paladins’ worlds came to a thundering hault. Their teammate had gone down to save them. Even Lance, his biggest rival, sat completely speechless. Shiro fell to his knees, unable to fathom what had just happened. Hunk had began to cry, Matt not too far behind him. Keith was gone. It had been one thing to lose him to the Blade, but now he was gone for good. He had died. Pidge stared at the void of space in front of her, caught in her own memories of the fiery, dark-haired teen to find that none of these moments would ever happen again. “It...It can’t be,” Shiro whispered, picking up his helmet that had fallen onto Black’s floor. He began to frantically call out to him, “Keith! Where are you? Come on answer, damnit!” 

“Shiro… He’s gone,” Allura replied, almost unable to speak at all. 

A variety of curses and muffled tears began to leave the leader’s lips. Going back to the castle felt like sons of ticks. Each lion returned without much problems, accept red. She turned opposite of the ship, roaring loudly into the distance. Lance was starting to get frustrated with her saying, “He’s dead! You don’t get it do you! Keith is not out there. He’s gone Red… He’s dead!” His voice broke as he said the other’s one last time. 

Coran ended up having to forcefully get Red into the castle, using the tractor beam. Everything was silent inside, Shiro having gone off to grieve by himself. “Lance… Let's all go to the common room. We can… just talk?” Hunk says, wiping tears from his eyes.

Everyone else seemed to be on board with this. Lance didn’t want to talk about the old times right now though. His mind was caught up in “what could have been” rather than “what already was”. He turned away from the other members of team Voltron, walking to his room. Hunk sighed knowing it wouldn’t be easy for him. Lance didn’t like to burden others with his feelings or talk about them in general. Dating back to their days before the Garrison, Hunk was the only one who made an effort to get him to let his feelings out. He would have never expected Lance to feel so rejected and sometimes cynical. He always would compare himself to Keith that it almost became an obsession. For the longest time Hunk thought Keith was this snotty, show-off of a pilot, until he met the boy. Sure, he was a bit disrespectful and closed off, but Keith had never even spoken to Lance. Hunk regretted ever hating him for no reason and he was sure Lance did too. Keith never actually degraded Lance throughout their Garrison years. When they were paladins, the two would bicker often, but Hunk always could tell they were never serious about their insults. “Thank you for proving to Lance he wasn’t just a cargo pilot. And thanks for being our friend,” He says, placing a hand on the window and looking out into the galaxy. He remained that way for a few moments before joining the rest of the paladins in the commons. 

 

Keith wasn’t expecting to fall. In fact, He wasn’t aware that he was standing up in the first place. He glanced around at his surroundings as a pair of arms caught his ungraceful self. “Well, well, if it isn’t the red paladin himself or should I say former paladin.” His left eye was blurring his vision, distorting the image in front of him. “Too bad we couldn’t save that eye… what a shame. Our mock cryopods aren’t as effective as the Alteans. Hm… You’re probably wondering how on earth I found you. You see… I have a mole in the Blade. She proved to be very useful.” 

“No…” He croaked out in a broken voice. He couldn’t believe that someone betrayed the one thing he put over team Voltron. Tears began to form in his eyes. How could he have been so foolish?


	2. Alliances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lotor proposes an idea to Allura that she simply can't refuse.   
> Keith is tempted by another offer to change his life forever.

There was a time Shirogane Takashi was a believer in the statement, “Bad things don’t happen to good people.” Clearly, that was complete crap. For the first time in his adult life, Shiro wept. He sobbed over all the times he’d spent with Keith back at the garrison, taking care of him, no, practically raising him with Adam. Sleep seemed to be his enemy every single night. Flashbacks of a smiling, young Keith haunted him. He found when he closed his eyes more things flooded his brain.

_“Keith please be rational, this is your second fight of the day,” Adam lectured with a heavy sigh._

_The shorter male responded with a loud huff. He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms defensively. He tried to hide a wince from the bruises staining his arms having pressure on them. Shiro had been cleaning up some cuts and bandaging them. “Everyone keeps calling you and Shiro a bunch of faggots… That’s why I punched them! They have no right to call you that or anyone.”_

_The two elder males were not expecting to hear some sort of sniffle come from the rebellious, young teen. They exchanged a look before Shiro stood up. Keith prepared himself for another lecture, and his eyes visibly widened as he was brought into a hug. “I know it’s been hard… It’s been difficult for me and Adam too. I know you’re angry, I am too. That isn’t an excuse to hurt people, but know they are in the wrong.”_

_“It isn’t fair…” He says, his anger turning into tears. “You didn’t do anything wrong…” Adam decided he was going to intervene now, seeing him start to openly cry. “I just don’t understand…”_

Before Shiro could even finish dreaming, he was shook by the teettering of the ship. He forces the sleep out of his brain and rushes to Allura. She was standing at the control’s slamming code into them. “Allura, please, rest. It’s not anything we could have prevented or something that you did wrong… Keith decided to protect us at the cost of his own life… We all would have done the same in his position…”

Blue eyes sharpened as they met his. Fury boiled in Allura’s veins. “Shiro…As paladins of Voltron our job is to protect the universe. There was something we could have done. If we had just retreated, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

The yelling seemed to have traveled through the halls to the ears of Lance. He sat on his bed, eyes open and full of some sort of unshed emotion. Keith, Mullet Head, Samurai, dead. The list just stopped. He knew that being a paladin was a risk, but it wasn’t super clear to him until one of them actually died. People weren’t invincible. Lance knew that. So why was he crying over someone who probably didn’t even care about him? Well, Keith did care about him… Just not in the way he wanted him to. He decided to walk into Allura and Shiro’s current disaster of a conversation to liven things up, but quickly stopped at the end of the hall when an incoming message appeared on the intercom. “Princess Allura… I desperately need your help. Defeating the troops loyal to Zarkon is no easy task. You and I both know we cannot do it alone. Seeing that the former red lion paladin has passed away. I am sincerely sorry for your loss and hope you will consider my offer,” A male voice pleads over the screen.

The light disappears and the princess returns to her room, no longer able to find the strength to keep at the activities anymore. Shiro had apparently left already, that much was obvious. Lance decided to wake Pidge up. He runs up to her door and opens it. “Pidge, I need you to look a this…”

Keith hadn’t been conscious for days. Everytime he woke up, there was a different ceiling above him. “... I am sincerely sorry… Hope you will consider my offer,” was all he could hear over the pounding of his own head. Since becoming a prisoner, he had gone through many stages of infection and sickness. Sweat poured out of his body like a river with no dam.

“My, my… Such a pathetic, fragile thing…” Lotor spouted on, walking down into his room.

He hadn’t even chained Keith up because of how weak he was. His teeth closed on each other, gritting hard. “Leave… me… be,” He gasps out, clutching his hands into a fist.

White locks brushed over Keith’s nose, making it scrunch in disgust. “Oh dear… Are you expecting me to kill you?” He asks, leaning into his face, looking down at him. “You see, Keith, I need you to tell me how to get rid of this… Princess. The others will be spared, but that rotten woman… The one who outcasted you… She must pay!”

Little did either know, green and blue paladins were listening as Keith let out a hollow snarl.


End file.
